160 



^le neitker mentioned, nor did I then suspect his motive. The let- 

 ter says, *' We contended that the whole treaty of 1783 must be 

 considered as one entire and permanent compact, not Hable, like 

 ordinary treaties, to be abrogated by a subsequent war between the 

 parties to it." Mr. Russell's proposal was to change the word 

 must for might — to read " we contended that the whole treaty 

 might be considered," kc. But to this alteration [ objected that it 

 would not state the facts as they were — that we had actually con- 

 tended that it must, and not that it might be so considered ; and Mr. 

 Russell immediately yielded to this objection, which he could not 

 dispute. He assented to this passage of the letter, as it was first 

 written, and as it now stands. The use which he even then pro- 

 posed to makeof the alteration, if it had been admitted, I now per- 

 ceive, but had then too sincere a regard for Mr. Russell to surmise. 

 There were, in the course of the negotiation, many differences 

 of opinion, and many votes taken ; but, excepting this solitary case, 

 no one member of the mission thought it necessary to record the 

 fact, or to make it known even to the American government. As 

 all the members of the mission had tinally concurred in the pro- 

 position upon which the vote was taken, and had signed their names 

 to it in the communications to the British plenipotentiaries ; and as 

 there was then no allegation by any one that it was not fully war- 

 ranted by our instructions, 1 certainly thought there was as little 

 necessity for announcing to our government that a vote had been 

 taken upon this proposition, as upon any other question which had 

 occurred — yet, when it was desired by any member of the mission, 

 that the proposition to which all had pledged their names and sig- 

 natures to the adverse party and the world, should be recorded, as 

 having been j^r^viously determined by a majority only, I could 

 have no objection to its being so stated. Mr. Clay did not think it 

 necessary either to accuse or to defead himself for having been in 

 the minority. The course pursued by Mr. Russell was neither 

 candid towards his colleagues, nor friendly to the liberties of his 

 country. Under the guise of accusing himself, he became the se- 

 cret delator of his colleagues. But his letter from Paris was not 

 connsed to its professed object of vindicating himself for his vote 

 upon the Mississippi proposition. He travelled out of the record, 

 and racked his ingenuity and his learning to refute the principle 

 assumed at the proposal of Mr. Clay himself — the principle upon 

 which no vote had been taken in the mission ; but which had been 

 adopted and inserted in the note of 10th November, 1814, by una- 

 nimous consent ; the principle that, from the nature of the fishing 

 liberties, and the peculiar character of the treaty of 1783, they 

 were not abrogated by the war. And now, seven years afterwards, 

 when, by the maintenance of that very principle, we had, in a sub- 

 sequent negotiation with Great Britain, secured in a new compro- 

 mise, without abandoning the principle, the whole essential interest 

 in the fishing liberties ; when, by the same negotiation, we had ob- 

 •rined the abaDdonment by Great Britain of her own ground of 



